This woman was Lena’s mother. I asked her to let me see the child, whom I found flushed and restless, tossing from side to side in her bed. Poor little Lena! The cottage was near my own house, and I went every day after that to see her. Often did I watch part of the night by her sick bed while her mother rested. At length our little patient began to recover; and while she was still too weak to walk, she delighted to sit at the cottage door, and listen while I told her stories.
Now, besides the poultry about the cottage, Lena had a pair of white doves, and in one of my stories I had told her of a letter being sent by a carrier-pigeon. Lena took it into her head that one of her white doves should carry letters from her to me after I returned to England. One day, when she was almost well, I found her standing at the door of the cottage, with the dove perched upon her hand, and a letter tied round its neck. She had been trying if it would carry a letter to me to my house close by; but it had only wheeled round and round and come back again to her. She said sadly: “If it does not know how to take a letter that little distance, how will it ever take one to England?”
Dear simple Lena! she did not understand that pigeons will only return to places where they have lived; but we have managed to correspond without the help of carrier-pigeons. I have seldom seen a prettier picture than she presented that day, standing at the cottage door with the white dove upon her hand.
FLOWER-BELLS.
Allegretto.
1.
The flower-bells are ringing! come one, and come all;
Come plain and come pretty, come great and come small.